>> pelley: tonight, it appears 13,000 americans received those tainted injections that can lead to meningitis. they're racing to treat anyone pofected with the killer disease. dr. jon lapook has the latest. s aryl attkisson on unanswered pleas for more security before the u.s. ambassador to libya was killed. ki >> i feel like we were being asked to play the piano with two hengers. >> pelley: the debate gives mitt romney a boost. pelley:new polling tonight that hows a change in the race. reports from jan crawford and nancy cordes. nd jim axelrod with an executive who's found a formula for succeeding in a tough economy. it's another at-bat for "money ball." >> we essentially have to have players whose performance is toter than what we're paying shem. than wha captioning sponsored by cbs ptios is the "cbs evening news"

s"ith scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening, in ohio police are searching for victims of the meningitis outbreak. in tennessee, they're reaching out with a phone bank. today federal officials titimated 13,000 americans received steroid injections that may have been contaminated with a potentially lethal fungus. gas.llnesses have been reported cross nine states. eight people have died. the steroids were used to treat painpain and joint pain. those who received injections in ion knowinal columns are at risk for the brain and spinal infection known as meningitis. dr. jon lapook begins tonight with the state that has the largest number of cases. >> reporter: in tennessee, public health officials are searching to reach people injected with the contaminated vials. th whether each and every vial was contaminated is not known, but certainly now we have an

increasing number of patients who are being reported as having ving fungal meningitis. >> reporter: dr. william schaffner has been tracking the outbreak at the vanderbilt university hospital in nashville. the sooner they find the infected, the better the odds of recovery. symptoms include fever, headache stiff neck and confusion. ne facilities in 23 states received the contaminated product which was shipped from the new england compounding center. injections may have started as ayrly as may 21. the centers for disease control believes the majority will not aet sick. dr. schaffner agrees. >> if there's a bit of a silver lining in this dark cloud it's that apparently the attack rate, the proportion of people actually developing an infection, is very small. in ly's really about 1% or less. >> the headaches were bad, very bad. w reporter: robert russell's wife janet has been fighting meningitis in an intensive care beenfor a month shechlt developed a severe headache

after getting an injection for ngronic back pain. >> they started doing m.r.i.s and cat scans and stuff like that and i don't think they saally knew at that point. so probably a few days later before somebody said, hey, it's meningitis. >> reporter: the typical tncubation period is one to four geeks but it's unclear how long intients who receive the steroid injections will need to wait considthey're considered out of the woods. ,> pelley: jon, dr. schaffner told you fewer than 1% are getting sick? why do some people get sick and ahers don't? >> scott, first of all, we don't know what percentage of those nearly 18,000 vials of tainted steroid have the fungus, that's the factor. the other thing is we don't have experience in people who have normal immune systems. most people who get this fungus te immunocompromised. aids or leukemia. .t's possible if it's just 'sjected locally the person's ersonmmune system can take care stemt and it doesn't make its way up the spinal column into the brain. of it >> pelley: jon, thanks very much. nte of the men responsible for security for u.s. diplomats in

libya says tonight he feared for their safety long before the dttack last month on the consulate in benghazi. four americans were killed as eou recall, including ambassador incs stevens. yhe military security officer will tell his story to congress on wednesday but tonight he sits own with sharyl attkisson. with orter: army green beret lieutenant colonel andrew wood first set foot in libya last webruary to lead an elite 16-man counterterrorism team. from the moment he arrived he says he saw chaos. chaoooting incidents that occurred, many instances involving the local security sard force we were training. constantly there was battles going on between militias, criminal activity and that became increasing danger as time went on as well. >> reporter: wood met daily with ambassador christopher stevens to discuss security.

that's stevens on the right and s on thewood on the left at a eft aial day service in tripoli. was he concerned about security? >> he was. he was constantly concerned about the threats to not just eimself but the entire staff shere. >> reporter: was there what you saw as a visible security drawdown during the period of time you were in libya? >> yes. it began just shortly after i ly aftd. there was pressure to reduce the rember of security people there. ro reporter: pressure from where >> higher headquarters at state department. >> reporter: over six months leading up to the attack on ambassador stevens wood says the security situation in libya deteriorated. there were 13 threats or attacks dn tripoli and benghazi. wood says ambassador stevens and wood thestaff made the case for ghteneded security in e-mails and diplomatic cables. but one by one lost three state eepartment security teams, their only airplane and eventually wood's squad, too. did ambassador stevens or a

regional security officer fight ity offanother team? >> yes. >> reporter: do you feel like r:ere was a disconnect between what you saw on the ground and olks the state department folks in washington thought was going on in libya? o> there was certainly no transnect in our transfer of information to them. they were getting the information on the situation on the ground. we sent it up through state department cables and i sent it up to the military side on the de d.o.d. side so there was awareness of what the situation in libya was about. ut reporter: how did you get the word that your team would not be hat wed to stay? >> we knew that was coming through the cables and draft cables going back and forth. the requests were being modified to say don't even request for v.o.d. support. >> the state department was telling the folks on the ground in libya "don't continue to ask for this help"? >> correct. >> reporter: wood says in his spinion some of the security teams would have been in benghazi on september 11 to help 11e state department bodyguards if they've been allowed to

oemain in libya does part of you wonder if the security requests had been granted the deaths eould have been avoided? d? yes, yes, i do. i think about that. i -- i spent a lot of time thinking about that. >> reporter: colonel woods says in special force he is normally operates in the shadows but says there was so much misinformation after ambassador stevens' death he felt he had relevant information to offer congressional investigators, scott, so he stepped forward. >> pelley: thank you, sharyl. margaret brennan is our state department correspondent, she's been talking to her sources ntday. margaret, what does the state colonement have to say about colonel wood's allegations? >> reporter: scott, the state department claims the withdrawal of a security support team from froa had no impact whatsoever on the total number of fully otalned american security personnel in libya overall or ibyahazi specifically. speick reaction force was on stand by to deploy if needed and they arrived in benghazi on the night of the attack, though not

until hours after the assault th began. tovernment sources point out oeutenant colonel wood was wationed in tripoli, he wasn't part of the assessment of assrity in benghazi. >> pelley: is the state department arguing, margaret that security was adequate in benghazi? eq well, they haven't finished their review. what we know is there were five diplomatic security agents present on the compound in dipl benghazi on the night of the ight of three of them survived but they tre injured. it still isn't clear how or why 't clbecame separated from the y becameor. and the state department is am likely to be asked whether the whs. should have stationed lmerican personnel inside libya, a country in which the hivernment doesn't have control of its own security. >> pelley: margaret, thank you. today mitt romney found himself in an unfamiliar place-- the toda ead. have a look. le in a pew research center poll mney month romney trailed

tresident obama by eight points, ,1% to 43%. but a pew poll taken after the wresidential debate last week ehows him ahead now by four points, 49% to 45%. that's outside the margin of error. we have two reports tonight. eprst we're going to go to jan crawford with governor romney who focused on foreign policy today at an address at the virginia military institute. jan? >> reporter: scott, the overarching theme is that the president has no foreign policy archingy that he's remained passive and reactive. romney said he know it is president hopes for a safer and pa freer middle east but that hope ddle e a strategy. egy.hen we look at the middle east today with iran closer than ever to nuclear weapons capability, with the conflict in wria threatening to destabilize the region and violent extremist on the march and with an american ambassador and three others dead likely at the hands of al qaeda affiliates it's

afar that the risk of conflict in the region is higher now than when the president took office. >> reporter: in israel, romney said the relationship between president barack obama and prime minister benjamin netanyahu had suffered great strains which has emboldened mutual adversaries such as iran. he said the president stood silent when iranians marched against their regime and wasn't quick enough to impose sanctions something romney has advocated for five years. >> i will not hesitate to impose new sanctions on iran and will tighten the sanctions we currently have. >> reporter: in egypt, romney >> r wiid he will include clear lenditions on aid, though he was gh he on what that meant saying only that he would pressure the pressurent to build democratic demotutions and maintain its peace treaty with israel. srael.ia, romney said the president has failed to lead and has been indifferent to the syrian's request for freedom and he would do more to help the opposition against bashar al- assad. >> i'll work with our partners to identify and organize members of the opposition who share our

whoes and then ensure that they obtain the arms they need to defeat assad's tanks and helicopters and fighter jets. >> reporter: romney also delivered his harshest assessment yet of the ministstration's evolving response to the attacks in libya. assauls latest assault can't be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting islam-- despite the heministration's attempts to convince us of that for so long. no, as the administration has finally conceded, these attacks erat the deliberate work of terrorists. they use violence to impose violr dark ideology and others. >> reporter: romney has been critical of the way the eyesident has handled libya, he iticalted humanitarian aid when ibe president advocated that but esidenhe president last year called for qaddafi's ouster, scott, romney accused him of omneng ad hoc determinations and saying he didn't have a long- term strategy. >> pelley: as you might imagine, lo jan, the obama campaign has another view and white house correspondent nancy cordes is joining us from keen, california with that tonight. nancy?

>> reporter: scott, good evening those poll numbers you mentioned helped to explain why the obama campaign harshly criticized izedey's speech today before he even delivered it saying that he en ded the commander-in-chief ed the it's part of an aggressive new approach to try to stem the damage from the president's debate performance. with the president in california for a mix of official business liforund-raisers the white house fired back at romney's claims that the president was weak on syria and iran. hey said romney did not propose any steps today that president obama hadn't taken already. >> that's why the united states will do what we must to prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear states. >> reporter: they pointed out romney's embrace of a middle east peace plan for two separate >> res with israel and palestine was at odds with what he told plnors in that secretly taped florida fund-raiser.

>> reporter: obama campaign obicials described romney's speech as an attempt at a foreign policy reboot after embarrassing missteps overseas this summer. they pointed to his visit to vendon where he questioned the hek.'s olympic readiness and his visit to israel where he andested palestinians lacked the economic drive of their rive oi neighbors. hbesident clinton's secretary of s secretadeleine albright, told reporters on an obama campaign camerence call that romney's speech was full of platitudes but no policies. 21st >> reporter: the obama the oign's reaction to this thech is part of a larger

romneygy to portray romney as opportunistic and dishonest. it all started right after that debate performance, scott. the old obama campaign might have made little mention of this speech. >> pelley: nancy, thanks. elley: may be near for californians paying record high gas prices. g recorere record low temperatures in some parts of the nation. and it's the beginning of a new chapter in space when the "cbs evening news" continues. satisfaction in the nation." call or go to quickenloans.com to discover for yourself, why we're engineered to amaze. no wonder it's america's #1 selling pain reliever. you took action, you took advil®. and we thank you.

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>> pelley: this is how bad it's gotten in california. elley: tthe gas tank there of fornia.ntry's most popular car, the toyota camry, it would cost r car, $80. have a look. the average price of gas itionally tonight is $3.82 a gallon but in california it's a record $4.67. we asked bill whitaker to tell taker re prices are headed. pricesrter: these days, california drivers are trying desperately to avoid the gas avoidn, some wait too long atcause the price at the pump is painful. or aaverage price for a gallon of unleaded soared more than 50 unle in a week. sam krikorian closed his pumps krday when the price to refill his tanks hit $50,000. $20,000 more than just the week before. wee he closed, a gallon of gas gas his customers 66 cents more than at the beginning of the s 66. thethe price went up five cents, pight cents, 12 cents.

>> reporter: today he's back open. the price to fill his tanks tanpped $7,000 over the weekend, d $7h means he can lower the r the at the pump. enttoday went down another seven to eight cent which is is a good anothe whiceporter: the problem at california's pumps is classic supply-and-demand-- or lack of supply. pply.inery fire in northern california, another shut down in southern california by a power outage cut the state's supply of gasoline by about 10%. now those refineries are coming back online and sunday governor jerry brown called for an early transition to the winter blend coldas refiners have stockpiled for cold months. it's m it's more polluting, but it's more plentiful says energy analyst dave hackett. >> it will raise gasoline at thetion upwards of 10%. so it's like addinganother oon.nery. >> reporter: he says the fever thanhe pump has been broken and

prices will fall soon. >> it will be lower tomorrow than it is today. .ait it out because it's coming down. >> reporter: scott, history shows prices rarely fall as fast re they go up. they should be back where they were before the spike in about a eonth. >> pelley: warm and sunny there, bill, but a lot of the country is getting a preview of winter. early morning temperatures is g plunged into the 40s, 30s, even the 20s in some places. ces cold-weather records have fallen since friday. this morning in dallas/fort worth the mercury dipped to 39. in abilene, texas, 34, and in , aahoma city 31. down right freezing. an experimental drug shows promise in the fight against alzehimer's disease. that's next. but after awhile even my girlfriend noticed a difference. [ male announcer ] rogaine is proven to help stop hair loss. and for 85% of guys, it regrew hair. save up to 42% now at rogaine.com.

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that were laid off come back to the school. navaz hurd: a smaller class size. navaz hurd: as a mom i want that. as a teacher i want that. prop 38 is an opportunity of a generation. >> pelley: there's new research showing an experimental drug may slow the mental decline of some showle with alzehimer's disease. tests show it can slow memory loss 34% in patients with mild alzheimer's. ith results were announced today yt a conference in boston, but but tests are needed before the neededan be approved. so far so good for america's first private space mission. the space x dragon capsule theted off last night from dragona. last nanned ship should reach sh international space station te wednesday. it's carrying half a ton of supplies and experiments. liesn mars, the "curiosity" rover took its first scoop of soil. if you look very closely down

there you can see the instrument cbrating to shake loose any excess soil and material there. e.uriosity" will be testing that ifil to try to determine if soil to try to determine if mars ever had the conditions necessary to support life. can the sequel live up to the original? the team that inspired "moneyball" is back and their story is next. ♪ reach one customer at a time? ♪ or help doctors turn billions of bytes of shared information... ♪ into a fifth anniversary of remission? ♪ whatever your business challenge, dell has the technology and services to help you solve it. mom? who's mom? i'm the giants mascot. eat up! new jammin jerk chicken soup has tasty pieces of chicken with rice and beans.

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blame. the human instinct that's costing us. next. to borrow a phrase from yogi berra, it's deja vu all over again. jim axelrod tells us a baseball team made up of players nobody wanted is back in the play- offs. >> reporter: they are the poorest team in major league baseball. with a roster stocked with rookies and low paid veterans pulled off the junk heap, the oakland as were pegged to finish last in their division. >> most people i think predicted not only would we lose 100, 110. so this has been satisfying. >> reporter: instead, they finished first. if what general manager billy beane has done sounds like a hollywood story, well, it already was. >> the problem we're trying to solve is that there are rich teams and there are poor teams. then there's 50 feet of crap and then there's us. >> reporter: brad pitt played beane in "moneyball." based on a best-selling book,

it's a david and goliath tale of a gm outthinking everyone else using a formula to find winners among baseball's discards. >> you have to find undervalued players. >> essentially have to have players whose performance is better than what we're paying them. >> reporter: beane's callations led the as to the play-offs five times between 2000 and 2006. that made many teams in baseball rethink how to stock their rosters and begin copying the as blueprint. then the as went five straight seasons without a winning record. at any point in the last five years, were you thinking to yourself, i may have lost my edge? >> no. i think during the time period you're talking about people sort of wanted to us cry uncle like, oh, you got to change. >> reporter: he didn't change. he beat the bushes to find no names like johnny gomes and brandon moss. >> it's easy to go out and buy a ferrari and take it to the racetrack. >> would you agree with me there's not a lot of ferraris

out there? >> not many at all. >> a lot of toyotas that get good mileage. >> exactly. [ laughter ] >> reporter: the as won 94 times this year with a $55 million payroll. the yankees spent nearly 200 million and far all that money they got just one more win. billy beane is living a real- life sequel. >> i don't remember the earlier -- those are great years that, uhm, i have to go back and read about them because i was so intense during that period. i was young, very young myself. and i don't think i really appreciated that win something really hard. >> reporter: this time around, billy beane is enjoying all the fun that comes with winning. the only thing better than a hollywood ending is when it's real life. jim axelrod, cbs news, detroit. and that's the cbs evening news for tonight. for all of us at cbs news all around the world, good night. captions by: caption colorado comments@captioncolorado.com good evening, i'm elizabeth

cook. >> i'm ken bastida. gasoline prices at record highs. bay area drivers are fed up and tonight, some top california leaders are demanding some answers. here's more bad news. the average price in san francisco is now $4.74. in oakland, it's 4.68 a gallon and 4.67 in san jose. cbs 5 reporter phil matier tells us, a couple of powerful state leaders are now calling for a federal investigation. >> reporter: that's right. there's nothing like gas prices around election time to get politicians moving. >> reporter: that was a sampling of the reaction at this oakland gas station to word that governor jerry brown issued an order to allow higher muting winter gas blend to be sold in the state early in the wake of this week's pump busting prices. >> i took the action that the state can